"The
reason this
lively B-film
reaches greatness is the thoroughly delicious
performance by Boris
Karloff
as the vicious thug Gruesome."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

John Rawlins ("The Arizona Ranger") directs this fun
Dick
Tracy film,
with Ralph Byrd starring as the hard-nosed detective.
It's based on the
comic strip by Chester Gould and is the best in the
series by RKO. The
reason this lively B-film reaches greatness is the
thoroughly delicious
performance by Boris Karloff as the vicious thug
Gruesome.

Escaped convict Gruesome (Boris Karloff), looking
much like
Frankenstein,
calls on his criminal piano playing pal Melody (Tony
Barrett) at the
Hangman's
Knot bar. Melody takes him to see in a plastic factory
Dr. Lee Thal
(Howard
Ashley) about pulling a bank heist. The next day
Gruesome, Melody, and
X-Ray (Skelton Knaggs), Lee's disreputable scientist
assistant, rob the
bank near closing time by planting a bomb in the waste
basket with a
secret
formula that paralyses everyone for 12 minutes and
when they recover no
harm is done to them. Tess Trueheart (Anne Gwynne),
the girlfriend of
Dick
Tracy's, was in the phone booth at the time and was
the only one not
frozen
in time and who managed to call Tracy about the
robbery in progress.
After
robbing the bank of $100,000 the trigger-happy Melody
fatally shoots a
bank guard in the street while they were making their
getaway by car.
The
robbers return to the plastic factory and Gruesome
informs Lee that
they're
partners and will split the loot in half.

Tracy soon learns that genius scientist Dr. A. Tomic
(Milton Parsons),
who invented the experimental freeze bomb, vanished,
and later learns
that
his nervous pretty assistant Dr. I. M. Learned (June
Clayworth) stole
the
secret formula from her boss to give to her crooked
boyfriend Lee. It's
then up to Tracy, with the help of his assistant Pat
Patton (Lyle
Latell),
to capture this dangerous gang before the 2 a.m.
deadline agreed upon
so
that snoopy reporter Dan Sterne (Jim Nolan) will hold
back until then
printing
about the freeze bombs and thereby not cause a
possible run on the
banks.

With monikers like A. Tomic and I. M. Learned and a
chase
through
a taxidermist place called Y. Stuffem, this Dick Tracy
episode has a
blast
with its silly story and characters.